


Yet here I remain

by HushBugger



Category: Hollow Knight (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:15:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23860675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HushBugger/pseuds/HushBugger
Summary: The knight helped Sly recover from the infection. Now Sly can do the same for Myla, and Myla can live again.With the infection gone, there's work to be done.
Relationships: Myla & Sly (Hollow Knight)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 95





	1. Bury my body

Sly’s goal was to accumulate Geo. The means was selling his stock. The amount of junk in his shop should shrink and the amount of Geo in his safe should grow. 

This was mediated by customers. Mostly not the other townsfolk, but wanderers who passed through. Lately, one wanderer in particular, a nailmaster with unlimited Geo and unlimited willingness to relieve Sly of junk. That was the kind of customer he liked. 

He therefore saw it as a subversion of the natural order when that wanderer came in dragging a huge load behind him. That was entirely backwards. 

“Hey! Hey! What do you think you’re doing?” 

He looked again. What he had first thought to be a large sack was actually a bug, wrapped up with string, faintly struggling. No, not just a bug—an infected husk, with telltale orange pinpricks in its eyes. 

“What’s this? Why are you bringing that in here?” 

The wanderer didn’t answer. But then they never talked to begin with. They tipped the husk upright, as if that would explain it. 

It was an all-around average bug. A hard hat with a Lumafly headlamp was perched on its head. A pickaxe was jammed in with the string. All of its limbs were securely folded up against its body. 

“What am I supposed to do with this?” 

The wanderer lowered the husk, walked up to his counter, and started piling up a small heap of Geo. A transaction, then. Not a gift. 

“There’s nothing I can do with this. I can stash it in my basement. Is that what you want?” 

They stepped backward, relinquishing the heap to him. He took that as a yes. 

They wanted storage. Storage was business, and he wasn’t one to reject business. If he scrutinized all the weird whims of his customers he’d never get anything done, but Geo was easy to understand. 

He counted out the Geo and did some quick arithmetic. “I’ll keep it around for a week. Pay me more after that. No guarantees if it breaks loose. Understand?” 

The wanderer looked him in the eyes for a moment. Then they turned and left, leaving the husk. 

Sly knew how to carry large, heavy objects. Getting the husk downstairs was no obstacle. 

He removed the equipment and checked its bonds and tightened them here and there. It wouldn’t do to have it get loose. He might have to damage it if that happened. 

As he rolled it over, it started making a funny noise. It took a moment to recognize it as a hum. There was a melody in it. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. 

After stashing it between a few boxes he raised his hands and sniffed them. They smelled sickly sweet. He knew that smell. The dream that had led him down the well had smelled the same. 

He scrubbed them thoroughly before returning to his shop. 

* * *

The husk’s melody followed him into his dreams. He was humming it when he woke up, until he caught himself. 

The husk had moved a little, but it hadn’t broken free, and it hadn’t gotten any deader. That was good. 

He didn’t bother trying to feed it. The infection made that unnecessary. He had spent weeks holed up in that ghost town without eating a thing. Something about it just let you go on and on beyond all reason, without food or sleep. 

When he got settled behind the counter he noticed he was humming the tune again. This was getting ridiculous. He was sure he had heard it before. He couldn’t have picked it up from the husk so thoroughly in so short a time. 

He went digging through his storeroom. He did have this old compendium of songs lying around somewhere. The trouble was all the other things also lying around and getting in the way. 

After a long search he concluded that it was somewhere else. He did find some forgotten merchandise to sell, so the search hadn’t been a waste. 

The basement, then? With the items of a more sentimental value? 

As he searched, the husk hummed, and he hummed along. It brought the text to the tip of his tongue. 

“ _Bury…_ ” he muttered as he moved things aside. “ _Bury my…_ ” 

The humming from the other side of the room was interrupted by a whisper. “ _…mother…_ ” 

That was it. That was how it went. _Oh, bury my mother,_ something something. The husk had life left in it yet. 

He sat down next to the husk and repeated it. “ _Oh, bury my mother…_ ” 

The husk muttered along and continued. “ _…pale… and slight…_ ” 

That was definitely it. Together they stumbled through the verse, syllables slotting into place. 

_…bury my… father… with his eyes shut tight…_

_…bury my sisters… two by two…_

_…and then when you’re done… let’s bury me too…_

He thought there were more verses, but they repeated this first one a few times. By the end, he knew it by heart. 

He climbed back up to his shop, a little disoriented. 

* * *

He was still humming on his customary walk around town. 

Elderbug remarked on it, always trying to strike up a conversation. “You sound cheerful!” He was clutching a white flower. 

“Oh, you know. I have some things on my mind.” 

“Is it related to the ruckus that young bug made? It was quite the sight, watching what they dragged into your shop.” 

“Heh. Nothing escapes your notice.” 

“Oh, I do not mean to be nosy…” 

“It keeps getting weirder! I’m now—” 

A shudder went through the world. 

A deafening silence drowned out all noise. Darkness rippled through the view. Sly briefly felt weightless. 

“Did you feel that?” asked Elderbug, redundantly. 

A change came over the air. It smelled rawer. There had been a sweet undertone, so pervasive that Sly hadn’t been consciously aware of it, but that was gone now. 

Elderbug was looking around. “Could it have been an earthquake?” 

“I better check on my shop,” said Sly. He hurried off. 

Nothing had fallen off the shelves. That was his first concern. 

His second concern was downstairs. Something had changed there. 

The husk wasn’t struggling any more. Its eyes no longer lit up. But it was breathing, slowly and shallowly. The infection was gone. 

Very carefully, ready to reach for a nail at a moment’s notice, he started undoing its bonds. It still didn’t move. 

This complicated things. Taking care of a husk was one thing, but now he had to take care of a _person_. 

Well, first things first. A person shouldn’t sleep on the floor. He had a spare bed between all the old furniture, so he cleared that out, and gently laid down the bug on it. 

He didn’t know what would happen now. Was this regular sleep, or was it a coma? 

He himself had been awakened from his stupor pretty easily. But this looked different. He’d have to wait and see. 

* * *

He found himself checking in below too often to keep his shop open. Better to just stay in the basement. He hated missing out on potential business, but a few things in life weighed more heavily than Geo. 

He had things to do in the meantime. Inventory to index. Nails to polish. Journals and other odds and ends to investigate. 

He sang while he worked. The same old tune. And when he finally found the rest of the text, he sung that too. 

_“Oh, bury the knight with her broken nail,_

_bury the lady, lovely and pale!_

_Bury the priest in his tattered gown,_

_then bury the beggar with his shining crown!“_

He didn’t know if it helped. He liked to think it did. Whatever the case, after a while, the bug stirred. 


	2. Cover my shell

Myla woke up. That was her first surprise. She didn’t remember going to sleep. 

Her second surprise was that she wasn’t in her mine. She was in a strange room full of boxes and candles. 

“Did I f-f-fall asleep?” she asked out loud. “I haven’t slept in a long time…” 

“I bet you didn’t!” said someone behind her. “You got infected!” 

“Infected?” She turned around. “Who are you?” 

“Don’t get up!” She lay down again. “I’m Sly. I run the shop in Dirtmouth.” 

Sly was a small bug with a large head and huge eyes. He was even shorter than that visitor who kept dropping by. But that one had been less talkative. 

“My name is Myla. I was… mining. How d-did I get here?” 

“A wanderer brought you. Grey cloak, pale head, horns. You know them?” 

“Oh. Yeah!” The visitor _did_ care about her. Did they like her singing that much? “Did you cure me?” 

“No, it went away on its own. I think it’s gone everywhere. Something big happened.” He looked her over. “Anyway, you’re not healthy yet! I bet you’re hungry. Do you like stew?” 

“Yes, I could go for stew.” 

“Great! Because that’s all I made.” He fetched her a bowl. 

It felt unexpectedly heavy in her hands. It was a good thing she hadn’t tried to stand up. 

The stew was good, and not just because she was hungry. It had flies, and mushrooms, and spices, and things she didn’t recognize. 

Sly watched approvingly as she ate. “Well done! Now sleep some more.” 

She did. 

* * *

Sly wasn’t there when she woke again. She took a good look around the room. 

All the light came from candles, except for a familiar glow near the side of her bed. It was her headlamp. How many of her things had ended up here? 

At the far end of the room stood a shrine. Four spikes sprouted from it, and an enormous nail was stuck into the top. She couldn’t guess at what it was for. 

The main feature of the room was the boxes. It was absolutely filled with them. Round boxes, pointy boxes, square boxes, spread haphazardly, all of them closed. 

Ragged drapes hung from the ceiling and sprawled over the floor. 

She didn’t think Sly received his visitors here. 

There was an engraved tablet on top of the box next to the bed, as if left for her. She smiled as she recognized the lyrics of her favorite song. Did he know? It didn’t matter. She drank it in, humming along as she read the words. 

After that there was not much more to be seen. And she was getting hungry. She lowered herself from the edge of the bed to test whether she could stand. 

She walked through the room, a little unsteadily at first. The wooden floor felt familiar, like the planks in her mine. 

A tunnel led out of the room. As she passed through it she heard Sly’s voice from upstairs, talking to someone else. 

“ _Yes, I do have rope. Good thinking! I also have pitons._ ” 

“ _One moment, I’ll get them._ ” 

The trapdoor at the end of the tunnel opened and Sly’s head poked through for a moment. “Myla, you’re awake! Great! Can you fetch the climbing equipment? Square box in the front left corner.” 

“ _Have you thought about bringing a light? I have a very versatile…_ ” 

That was a little blunt. But the directions were straightforward. She found the box, checked that it really had ropes and stuff, and dragged it to the trapdoor. Sly jumped down and, in a way she didn’t quite grasp, carried up the entire box, which was bigger than himself. He beckoned for her to follow. 

She watched as Sly bargained with a tall, indecisive bug. She gathered that the bug wanted to explore Hallownest but didn’t have any prior experience. Sly rapidly made suggestions and alternately praised and critiqued his own ware. He wasn’t afraid to point out that a nail kept an edge or that his bandages were a little grubby. 

He kept adding onto a pile of items, which he finally exchanged for a hefty sum of Geo. 

When the explorer-to-be left the shop, Sly visibly relaxed. “Sorry,” he said. “I get a bit focused when I’m making a sale. You must be hungry again.” 

She nodded. 

He filled another bowl from a pot on a burner. “Here. Same as yesterday, hope you don’t mind.” 

She started eating. It was just as tasty as last time. 

“Business is booming! I had three customers today. They’re looking for treasure.” 

“Treasure?” Myla asked. She had come for treasure, once upon a time, hadn’t she? 

“That’s what most of them came for before. But now there are more, hoping for easy pickings without the infection! And they’re less experienced, which is good for me, because they need to buy more equipment. Let’s hope they don’t die. Dead bugs don’t spend Geo.” 

“Is it still d-dangerous?” 

“Less than before. It’s not civilized, there are lots of ways to get hurt. But the worst is gone.” 

“The worst?” 

“It got really bad at the end. There was a bug that crawled out of the well and _exploded_ , if you can believe it. _That’s_ gone now. Or so I hear. There are only natural hazards left.” 

Myla thought about her mine. Had it changed? Probably not. No husks had ever entered it. 

When she was there before, mining had felt like the most important, most gratifying thing in the world. She didn’t feel that now. But something of herself was still there. 

“I want to visit my mine again.” 


	3. What meaning in darkness?

Myla straightened her hard hat and checked that her pick was fastened to her belt. She was ready to set off. 

Sly followed her out of the door. 

“Are you coming with me?” she asked. 

“I wanted to check the ruins anyway,” he replied. “Might as well keep an eye on you at the same time.” 

Sly carried an empty bag and a nail. “Do you know how to use that?” asked Myla. 

He made an odd grunt, like a suppressed chuckle. “I can get by.” 

“I’ve never had one. Maybe I could use my pick, if I had to.” 

They climbed down the well. 

The crossroads were not as perilous as they used to be. There was no need to watch out for husks, and even the vengeflies seemed less aggressive. 

But on the flip side, there were corpses everywhere. It seemed the husks had dropped where they stood when the infection disappeared. 

The last time she was here they had been shambling around. It had been creepy, but this was much worse. The corpses were just _lying_ there, in contorted poses, abandoned by the world. 

And _she_ had been infected. What if there hadn’t been anyone to take care of her when she recovered? Would she have died, become nothing more than a corpse among hundreds? 

Sly wasn’t perturbed. “Where to?” he asked. 

“R-right. Hang on.” She took a moment to get her bearings. 

They navigated through the crossroads, occasionally having to climb where the road had broken down, passing all the strange statues and arches and pillars along the way. And the corpses. 

Neither of them talked. 

It wasn’t long before they reached the Temple of the Black Egg. She had heard about it, and she had passed it before, but she had never entered it, and she wasn’t going to enter it now. The building had an eerie shape, like the remains of a gigantic bug, with the door as the mouth. She didn’t know if that was what it was or if it was just built that way. 

There were no corpses around the temple, but it wasn’t long before those made their return, along with huge bloated vengefly carcasses and dried-up black vines. 

They descended some more, and then she finally spotted the wooden beams of her mine. “There!” she called. The word echoed strangely. 

“Great! Let’s have a look.” 

The mine was just as she remembered it. Lanterns, barrels of crystals, damaged rails, the whole lot. It hadn’t been touched. 

Sly looked pensively at the barrels. “Did you mine these?” he asked. 

“Oh, t-those were already there when I came here. I was looking for… for…” 

What _had_ she been looking for? 

Sly turned over a crystal in his hand. “They used to generate power with these. Something about the way they refract light. But I don’t think they’re worth much any more.” 

“R-really?” She had thought they were valuable, but she didn’t remember how she got that idea. 

“Nobody makes the machines to use them any more. Fiendishly complicated things. Still, I guess they’ll do well as souvenirs. People love trinkets.” Sly started filling his bag. 

Myla kept walking until she found the wall she last mined. Whatever she had been looking for, she had been sure it was behind this wall. Always just another strike away. 

She remembered a yellow glow, like sunlight. It wasn’t there now. Had she imagined it? 

Experimentally, she raised her pick, and struck. A bit of rock broke off, but nothing loosened in her memory. So she just stared at the wall, trying to relive it. It was at the tip of her tongue. 

Sly had sneaked up behind her. “I know that look. You’re trying to remember.” 

Myla slowly nodded. 

“Try to forget instead. It’s easier.” He moved next to her, also looking at the wall. “I had my own bout of infection. Woke up with a waking dream, climbed all the way down to bottom of the crossroads, and sat there. I thought I was with my, my, my old friends. So that much made sense. But I also thought there was something _else_ down there, something worth staying for all on its own.” 

“What was it?” 

“I don’t remember! But I think it was nothing. I think it was just a feeling, a feeling that wasn’t _about_ anything.” 

“How did you leave?” 

“Somebody snapped me out of it. The same person who brought you to me, in fact. Must have a knack for it.” He rattled his bag. “Anyway, I’m going to leave now. You can come with me, unless there’s something else you want to do.” 

There wasn’t. She gathered up her own bag—it had been left there—and followed him. 

The corpses kept irking her. What would she have wanted to be done for her if she had died here? It wasn’t right for them to stay like this. 


	4. Yet here I remain

“All in all, I like to think we have the finest town in all of Hallownest,” said Elderbug. After a moment of thought, he added, “Though I suppose there can’t be many others left.” 

Myla would be staying in Dirtmouth, at least in the near future, so he was giving her a tour. She got the impression there was nothing he liked doing more. 

“Now, have you decided which house to move into? There are plenty of options.” 

“Not yet, but I’ll let you know! Can you show me around the graveyard too? It l-looked interesting.” 

“The graveyard? I think it’s a bit somber, but I’ll gladly take you there.” He started shuffling along the road. “It hasn’t gotten much use in recent years. With so few people living here, few people were dying. Or not dying up _here_ , anyway.” 

They went past the well, and through the graveyard’s gate. She didn’t think it was _that_ somber. Perhaps when it was dark. 

“Does anyone still t-t-take care of it?” asked Myla. 

“I do. I have to! Nobody else is going to do it. But I just do maintenance. I haven’t had to bury anyone since the old gravedigger died.” 

“How did he die?” 

“Fell into an open grave. A real shame. But there are worse ways to go. And all I had to do was fill it up.” He sighed. “Anyway, we’re here. Look as much as you like. I don’t think you’ll get much from it without knowing the people who were buried.” 

“Well, _I_ don’t know them. But maybe—maybe you can tell me about them?” She pointed at the nearest gravestone. “Who’s buried there?” 

“Why, that’s Meria’s grave. She died when I was just a boy. Meria used to ferry messages and packages to the people still living in the ruins. Made a good living off it, too. A much braver bug than I ever was.” 

She tried to commit the person and the grave to memory. “And that one?” She pointed at another grave. 

“Ah, Anvis. Him I knew better. He grew these _very_ tasty roots, guaranteed to spice up any meal. He also played a mean game of kegling. I remember, one day…” 

* * *

Myla had just settled into her house—the one closest to the graveyard, it used to be the gravedigger’s—when she climbed down the well again. 

She selected the first corpse she laid eyes on. That seemed proper, somehow. Its limbs were stiff, making it hard to lift, but she fitted a makeshift rope harness around it and dragged it back to the well. 

She attached a hook on the harness to the well’s chain. Then she climbed up herself, and gradually pulled it to the surface. It took a while. 

She took a moment to catch her breath, and carried it to the small building adjoining her house, where she laid it out on a slab. 

The body was clearly old. Its shell was scratched and cracked. Those things didn’t heal on infected husks, they just accumulated. But there were identifying features. She spent some time studying its face, committing it to memory. This had been a person. 

However much they had owned when they were alive, there wasn’t much left now. All she found was a pouch with a little Geo and a brooch. 

The brooch was inscribed with a simple symbol, two interlocking spirals. It didn’t tell her much, but it gave her something to work with in place of a name. 

She retrieved an unused headstone from the dusty leftover stock. It was soft stone, not like the kind she was used to mining. With a few false starts, she managed to carve a crude version of the symbol into it. No doubt she’d get better with practice. At least it was recognizable. 

That left digging a grave. That was a more familiar task. It was dirt rather than rock, and vertical rather than horizontal, but if anything, that should make it easier, right? 

She didn’t have much experience with a shovel but she settled into it quickly. She found a rhythm, and the lot she had picked sank, while the pile of earth next to it grew. She sang while she worked. 

_“Ohhh, bury my mother, pale and slight,_

_bury my father with his eyes shut tight!_

_Bury my sisters two by two,_

_and then, when you’re done…“_

She could just barely see over the edge. That should be deep enough. As long as nothing popped out it was okay, right? 

The body went into the grave, its limbs straightened out as far as they could go, its brooch upon its chest. The dirt went on top of the body. And the headstone went on top of the dirt. 

That brought her to the end of the day. She’d do the same thing tomorrow. 

* * *

She did do the same thing the next day. And the day after that. And the day after that, and so on, until she no longer knew how many bodies she had buried. She could have counted them, she knew every grave in the graveyard, but reducing them to a number would have been crude. She remembered them individually. 

She remembered the priest, as she called him, for his tattered gown. She remembered the bug who carried a pin that Nymm said had been part of an organ (though he didn’t know how he knew). She remembered the bug with the friendly round face who hadn’t been carrying anything at all. For every bug she found something to remember them by. 

As she did this, she settled into the village. She got to know Cornifer, and Iselda, and the others, and she turned from that girl who recovered from the infection into that girl who tended to the graves. She met travelers in town and she met travelers in the ruins and perhaps a reputation started to spread. 

One morning she found a guest at her door, clad in red, carrying a bundle wrapped in a shroud. 


	5. I'll wait here forever

“My name is Hornet,” she said. Her head was pale, her dress red. She carried a peculiar long slender nail in one hand and a bundle of white fabric in the other. “Are you the gravedigger of this town?” 

“Yes, I am,” Myla replied. 

“Can I come in?” 

She stepped aside. Hornet entered, and stood her nail against the wall. 

“I have a patron for you. Is that the word you use?” 

Myla shrugged. 

“The circumstances are unusual. I will explain.” 

She placed the bundle on Myla’s table and unwrapped it, revealing an assortment of small objects. And a skull, split in half. Myla recognized it, and her breath caught. It was her visitor from the mines. 

Hornet studied her reaction. “Did you know it?” 

“A little. They…they saved me.” She didn’t elaborate. 

“These are its possessions, and what was left of it.” 

“Where’s the rest of the b-body?” 

“There wasn’t one. It’s a complicated matter. I do not even know whether it truly died.” 

“They’re still alive?” 

“It’s possible.” 

Myla looked at the other things. There were a _lot_ of charms, more than she had ever seen together before. There was a finely engraved nail, a stack of maps, a lantern, a sort of magnifying glass with metal filigree in place of a lens, and many less recognizable things. 

“Do you think this should be kept here?” she asked. “In case they return?” 

Hornet sighed. “That may be prudent.” 

* * *

The ghost (as Hornet called them) had had some dealing with everyone in town. They had cleared out the shops, kept Elderbug company, performed some undetermined good deed that Nymm couldn’t remember at the moment, and done more besides. 

The whole town watched as Myla placed the shroud with the ghost’s remains at the bottom of the hole. She tried not to think of it as a grave. 

Sly lingered as she filled it in. “Are you burying their belongings too?” he asked, a little hesitantly. 

She shook her head. “That would be inconvenient. When they come back.” 

Sly grunted. “Of course, of course. I was just wondering about the maps.” 

“Why the maps?” 

“He isn’t going to tell you himself, but I’m sure Cornifer would like a look at them. He didn’t map _quite_ all of Hallownest, and our friend made some additions.” 

“Ah. I think that would be alright.” 

They wouldn’t mind if their things were put to use, would they? Everything would still be there when they returned. 

When she fetched the maps, she looked at the other items again. The thing that looked like a magnifying glass caught her eye. Out of everything, it appeared both the most beautiful and the most useless. It looked ornamental. Just a stick with a metalwork picture of a flower. 

She picked it up, and a shiver went through her, from her hand to the rest of her body. She blinked a few times as the world took on a subtly different color. 

The tool (was it a tool?) felt warm to the touch. And there was a sense of weight to it, like it was longer than it looked. 

She waved it around, half expecting it to leave a trail, but nothing happened. 

She fixed it to her belt and went to deliver the maps to Cornifer for copying. 

There was somebody in the graveyard when she came back. He was transparent and floated some distance above a grave. 

He didn’t notice Myla as she approached. 

“Hello?” she said. That turned his head. “Who are you?” she asked. 

“Me?” he replied, though there wasn’t anyone else around. His voice sounded as if it came from far off. “I’m the gravedigger here.” That matched the grave. 

“You, um, you appear to be d-dead.” 

He looked down. “Ah. So I am.” 

He continued to stare at the ground, as if composing a thought. 

“This grave isn’t topped up properly,” he eventually said. “It has sunken.” 

“It has?” It _was_ a bit lower, like a dent in the ground, in a way that none of the other old graves were. But some of her own graves were starting to look like that, come to think of it. 

“The soil compresses and the remains decompose,” the gravedigger explained, apparently uninterested in his own demise. “That causes sinkage. The level has to be maintained until it settles.” 

“Oh. I see. So I just p-p-pile more earth on top?” 

“That would do the trick.” 

She looked at the rest of the graveyard, and thought back to her own efforts. “Do you have any other advice about gravedigging?” 

* * *

He had a lot to tell her, and with his guidance, she cleaned and repaired and realigned the graves. The graveyard gained a stateliness it had been missing. 

The gravedigger appeared less as time went on. When he did, it was often to point out some wear or unevenness she had missed. 

He rarely remembered things from conversation to conversation, but he seemed quietly satisfied with the transformation. 

It was while she was doing maintenance that she saw Sly approaching the well, wearing a backpack. “Are you leaving?” she asked. 

“Hm? Just going to visit some old friends down in the ruins.” He pulled a scroll from his pack and held it up. “The new maps will help. The roads have changed since the last time I traveled.” 

Even now, the ghost was helping people. 

* * *

Geology appears static. It looks like it never changes, unless acted on from the outside with brute force. Not so. Even rock is always shifting, moving ever so slightly. Sometimes it reaches a tipping point, and something breaks apart. 

This is what happened to a particular wall in a particular abandoned mine. Without anyone there to see it, the rock broke away. And something fell out. 


	6. Light blooms again

Myla found the body while making a detour. 

She had cleared out a good part of the Forgotten Crossroads, enough that she had to wander some distance to find bodies and that carrying them to the well took significant time and effort. She had started using a little cart with two wheels to carry them around. Places where the road broke down posed a challenge. 

It took her by surprise when, searching yet a little further for a corpse, she found the entrance of her old mine. 

She didn’t expect any bodies, but couldn’t resist the temptation to take a look. How long had it been? 

She had forgotten how brightly the crystals sparked. It was a beautiful sight. 

She walked further and further inside, her legs falling back into old patterns, guiding her to that singular wall she had spent so much time hacking at. And then she saw that it had collapsed. 

Rubble was scattered down the hallway. The vertical wall was now a slope. And from that slope poked a body. 

It took a moment to recognize that it _was_ a body, and not some strange artifact. It was enormous, most of it was covered, and what was visible was equal parts pale fur and metal. 

She cleared away debris until the full shape was visible. It was unlike anything she had seen before. The metal made up its legs, which were pressed together into the shape of a blade. At the opposite end stood three spikes, above a dark gap that she had to assume was a face. Loose bundles of flaps protruded from both its sides, like wings. 

Well. A body was a body. If this had been a person then they deserved to be buried. 

She would have to find a way to move them. Her cart wasn’t going to cut it. 

* * *

With much deliberation and experimentation and the help of a few townspeople, the body was hooked up to the nearby lift’s machinery to pull it up and out of the shaft. They pulled it into the crossroads, where there was enough room for ramps. They ultimately succeeded in getting it down to the Stag Station. 

The old stag was surprised at receiving so large a passenger. But carrying such a load was an old problem with old solutions, and he fetched a cart of his own to carry it up to Dirtmouth. 

Digging a large enough grave took several days, during which the body lay exposed above the ground. Many people from in and out of town came to look at it and speculate about it. But if anyone recognized it they didn’t tell. 

The grave was large, but its gravestone was the same as the others, distinguished only by its carving, unique like all the others. She had carved two wings with the three horns on top. And that was that. 

She would never truly know who was buried there. She didn’t truly know any of the people she buried. But they were remembered in some way, inadequate as it was, and that was better than nothing. 

* * *

Visiting the mine had reminded her of her visitor again. The ghost. 

It had been a long time. They weren’t coming back, were they? 

She stood at their grave, staring at the gravestone, carved with the shape of their face. 

Why had they saved her? 

Had they liked the sound of her voice that much? 

Her voice trembling, she began to sing. 


End file.
